Train-wreck lawyer surrenders his license
But it’s the Oregon State Bar that’s off the rails
After being suspended four times since 2010, attorney William Carl has finally resigned his law license, rather than contest several charges leveled against him by the Oregon State Bar. Some, but not all of those charges stemmed from two criminal cases against Carl, which involve stalking, drug possession, and assault.
Carl’s resignation was broadcast just last month, nearly five months¹ after he offered it, without any press release or public warning… just a brief announcement in the Bar’s monthly magazine. It ended with this sentence:
Aside from being redundant, that tidbit is also concerning: The Bar is supposed to protect clients of flame-outs like Carl, either by ensuring that their client files are transferred² to licensed attorneys (or the Bar’s malpractice attorneys); or in extreme cases, the Bar is supposed to initiate a custodianship over the files.
Having been on the Bar’s radar for at least a decade, and more acutely in 2018, William Carl appears to be such an extreme case. 2018 is when he was reported to the Bar — by a former colleague — for his apparent drug abuse, and then immediately left or was ousted from his firm. Six months later, there was a suspicious fire inside that firm’s building, on a Saturday evening, which apparently damaged a “vacant office space” and a few other rooms in the back.³
Someone else has since been arrested for that arson, but their criminal case is proceeding unusually, and the indictment is sealed due to a related “ongoing investigation.”
Given his history of drug abuse, violating restraining orders, assault, suspicious office fires, and general dishonesty, Carl is precisely the kind of train-wreck that the Bar should swoop down upon, and secure his paper files before they mysteriously combust.
It is inexplicable that the Oregon State Bar has not done so.
There is a hearing set next week in Carl’s assault case (Josephine County), and another in February for his violation of his probation in the stalking and drug case (Deschutes County).⁴
¹ Carl signed his letter of resignation in late July, but it was not accepted by Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Megan Flynn until early October, and there was no press release about it until December. All the while, the public was not protected.
² If the attorney cannot provide a concrete plan for their files, the Bar (and/or the Chief Justice) are supposed to reject the attorney’s resignation, and require them to revise it. That did not happen in this case.
³ I recall reading about the office fire when it occurred and thinking that an attorney was employing creative alternative resolution methods!
⁴ As an aside, Oregon’s public defense crisis is apparently being worsened by attorneys unable to pay for their own defense.
